Truth Thursday: Book Finishing Blues

There comes a time in the writing of a book where an author finally finishes writing the last words of a novel, sits back, and stares at the page (or screen, depending on what medium was used) and realizes: "Wow. I just finished writing a novel."
I'm personally not an extremely excitable person. I feign excitement a lot, but only if I'm around other people. If I'm sitting by myself staring at my computer screen, then I don't get excited at all. I continue doing whatever work needs to get done without getting excited. When I got the email offering me a publication contract, I was so nonchalant about it that probably no one guessed I had just gotten one of the most important emails of my life.
The same feelings sat with me as I finished the rewrite of Solid Ground. This book has been with me for so long. Almost 7 years ago in fall of 2007, I began writing about Vivie, her family, and her friends. The journey continued until my freshman year in high school, April 2009. Eight books and many dead pens later, the series was finished. I moved on and began writing other projects. But in 2012, I decided that there was a lot of potential in the series of books I had finished. Yes, a lot of material would need to be thrown away, but much of it could also be reused. So that was how I began rewriting Solid Ground from scratch. Two days ago, I finished the rewrite, which is about two years of work on this project. It was strange, because I didn't really feel anything. I just sat and stared at my screen with several thoughts running through my head.

Truth Thursday: It's Hard to Focus

When I say it's hard to focus, I mean it in two different ways. For one, it's hard to concentrate when actually writing material. For another, it's hard to focus on just one project. There's always so much to work on and so much to do.

At the beginning of the year, I was working on editing Second Chance, which must have worked, because now it's getting published. I have also been working on its companion novel, Impact. But I got distracted and continued some work on a project I started in 2012 temporarily titled Redemption, not to mention editing a novel I finished in 2012 titled Chains, rewriting a novel I finished writing in middle school titled Solid Ground, and writing the sequel to a novel I finished in 2011 titled Transparent.

As one might imagine, by trying to focus on all of these things, I've gotten none of them done. Impact should be a bigger priority because it's the companion novel to something that's getting published very soon. But I'm being pulled in so many directions because I don't want to lose my ability to create new material, and I don't want to lose my ability to edit well. I want to exercise all parts of my brain, but it's very difficult to juggle. I don't exactly like carrying around 2 binders and 3 notebooks everywhere I go. For one, it's heavy to do so, and for another, it's difficult to actually get something completed due to this problem.

So what did I do? I didn't write for a little bit because even though I love writing, it really can become a stressful activity sometimes. I dipped my toes back in the water this week editing Chains during some down time and writing a little more of Solid Ground. Taking breaks from editing usually isn't a big problem, but taking a break from writing or rewriting something is, especially when a huge chunk of material has already been written. When the motivation to write comes, first I reread everything I've already written to make sure I don't write any inconsistencies or double-up on similar events. But by the time I do that, sometimes I've run out of steam to actually write the piece. This is incredibly frustrating and is holding me back from finishing manuscripts. So what is a girl to do?

To be honest, I haven't figured that out yet. But I thought I would mention this is a problem because I know many other authors have to deal with it as well. So, how truthful is this post? Do you deal with similar situations when you write, or have you heard of writer friends who have the same issues?

Truth Thursday: The Horrors and Joys of Reading Your Old Stuff

Sometimes, I dig out pieces of my old writing. Usually, I instantly regret it, for obvious reasons. But there are things to be learned from burning out my own eyeballs with my own writing, which I will share.

• I could dwell on how awful my writing used to be, how shallow my characters were and how flat everything sounded. Or I can compare it to how I write now, smile, laugh, and move on. Without writing like I did before, I would never be able to write like I do now. I finished writing 40 first drafts of novels, and it's my 40th novel that's getting published. So lesson is, try, try, and try again, and after using a fistful of pens, you'll probably get somewhere.
• People's opinions are valuable. I grew most when I had feedback from people so I knew what I was doing wrong and what I needed to fix. Now I remember what people said, especially if multiple people said the same thing about the same piece, and make those mistakes much less often. It shows because my writing now flows so much better.

Toolbox Tuesday: Writer's Block

*Adapted from when I guest posted on my friend's blog a few years ago.

-Title trouble: Where you want to name your project, but you just don’t know how!

Tip #1:

Try not to use a character’s name in the title. Part of the fun in opening up a book is figuring out the main character’s name! What’s the fun in that if you give it straight up? (This is not to say that it's wrong to use the main character's name in a title once in a while, but it's best to not have it in the title every time. If the character's name is going to go into the title, at least make sure the name doesn't stand alone, so it will stand out from other characters with the same name.) For example, I have a project titled Dear Eric. It tells the reader Eric is a character (actually not the main character), but not much else. That may spark some people's interest, or it may not. (I feel like the project could have a better title, but seeing as I haven't come up with one, it'll stay as it is for now.)

Tip #2:

If you don’t have a title in mind and you think you absolutely have to have one, guess what? You don’t. Keep writing. A title might restrict your writing to narrow-mindedly follow certain ideas. Write as much as you can before naming a project, or just give it a temporary one. Sometimes, you may like it enough to make it your actual one.

-General writer’s block trouble: Where you need to finish the story, but you don’t know how to.

Tip #1:

Read everything you’ve written so far. Thoroughly read it and refresh yourself of what has already been established. Move forward from there.

Tip #2:

If that doesn’t work, maybe one of your characters is causing a problem because you don’t know enough about him/her yet. Fill out a character chart for him/her. There are lots of them out there! Force yourself to fill out every single blank. Don’t hesitate. If you don’t know the answer, make one up. If you really have to, change it later. But if you can, fill the chart out and stick to it.

Tip #3:

This is actually the best one. Get in the shower. Forget everything else. Just take a nice, hot, long shower. Showers are the best places to come up with ideas. Usually, this is a great way to figure out how to continue with rising action, climax, and falling action business. If anything, it gives you a break and allows you time to think and release some stress, so it won’t harm you in any way to try this.

Tip #4:

Sometimes what you really need to cure writer’s block is a break from that particular project. Maybe not from writing itself, but sometimes it’s best to leave a story alone for a while. It could be a day, a week, a month, or even six months. It all depends on the story itself. Trust yourself to finish it eventually. Leave it somewhere where you’ll still see it once in a while, but don’t touch it. You might be surprised what you go through during that time and subconscious ideas that may come to you.

Tip #5:

Save this for last resort. If you really have absolutely no clue whatsoever as to what to do, find someone you trust and ask him/her to read everything you have so far and give you their opinion on what you should do next. Then find several other people and do the same. Maybe they’ll suggest something you like, maybe they won’t. But if they don’t suggest something you like, this might be a good time to figure out where you really want to go and to go with it.

In all honesty, no one can tell you how to write your story. Everyone has their own ways to overcome writer’s block. These are just little things you can do instead of throwing everything in the trash can like every writer wants to sometimes. Save everything, even the junk. You may get to use it someday!

Fun Friday: Wheel of Emotions

Human emotions are complicated. We're not limited to just happiness or sadness, because there are also different aspects of emotion within the main branches we have. Unfortunately, I don't know where exactly this chart is from, but I take no credit for it. However, I do think it's cool and wanted to share it.

Truth Thursday: A Break from Hashtags (Writing Sequels)

Writing is much harder than it sounds. An infinite number of problems can find ways to present themselves in a manuscript. After hours of working on deleting typos and editing out words that occur too frequently, a second or third glance will still reveal problems that were previously overlooked. To produce a good piece of writing takes patience, time, and a lot of red pens that end up thrown away not because they get lost, but because they run out of ink.

A few weeks ago, I got bored in class, so I wrote out a scene I planned for a sequel to a novel I started and finished three years ago. The scene continued and developed into a chapter, which spawned another chapter, which in turn spawned even more chapters. (They multiply like rabbits, I swear.) Now I have more than 10 chapters of a new novel staring at me. On one hand, I'm excited because it's fun figuring out where my characters have gone in their time away from me, what they're up to, and seeing how they've developed differently. However, I can't seem to turn off the editor in my brain that complains that I'm not watching out for repeated words, that the character development feels unnatural at times, and that new characters that I've added are shallow and not fleshed out even though I've already written twenty thousand words of the novel. In fact, I'm afraid that I've been wasting words instead of making sure each of them is precious.

This is not a unique problem. Many writers are afraid of writing sequels because they fear it won't be as good as the original. (We hear people talk about how movie sequels aren't as good as their originals sometimes, and we fear the same thing for our precious babies, our novels.) In fact, I don't know if I'll ever publish this sequel that I'm writing. When it's complete, I'll have to evaluate it and see if it detracts from the story it's a sequel to, if the quality measures up. To do that, however, I have to actually finish writing the novel, which will be the hard part.

See, being a writer is tough. But being a writer is immensely rewarding as well. So wherever it takes me and whatever I do with it, this is what I'll do for now. I'll let the words flow out of me, and when the reservoir runs dry because the novel is done, I'll put it aside for a time. Then I'll pull it back out and make my decision then.

It'll be months before this happens, so don't expect to hear about my decision soon. But once again, writing requires patience, time, and many red pens. And I'm ready to supply all three.

Toolbox Tuesday: Writing About Dogs

Three years ago, I adopted my dear dog, Waffles, from an animal shelter. Life has never quite been the same since.

I didn't realize what it's like to own a dog and the joys of being around one until I got one myself. Now, this cutie pie has me inserting dogs into my own writing so my characters can have the joy of being a dog owner as well.

There are so many important details when it comes to writing about dogs, but I'll try to touch on the points that are most important.

• Any dog owner should know that if your dog happens to get off its leash and is running away from you that running towards your dog is the worst thing you can do. If your dog is normal, it will think you are chasing it and continue running. This would be especially unfortunate if there is an incoming car. The right thing to do is to yell your dog's name and run in the opposite direction. Dogs in their loyalty will bolt after you, which is how you catch a runaway dog. (I mention this because I read a story once where a girl ran after her dog and facepalmed because I know this fact about them. For example, I wouldn't try to write about cats without talking to someone who owns one, so it's best to research an animal before writing about it and its behavior.)
• When dogs meet each other, they can become fast friends and play with each other, hate each other on the spot, or take a few meetings to warm up to each other. This depends on each dog's personality, how they feel about other dogs, and general friendliness. For example, Waffles loves humans, but he'll bark at any other dog he sees in the park when I walk him (hence why I often take really weird routes to avoid them). However, he has managed to make friends with a select few dogs. Most likely, dogs will either growl at each other and act like they're going to tear each other's faces off, or they'll play with each other. As long as neither reaction is constantly written, dogs meeting each other should come off realistically.
• Dogs will come greet you at the door unless they're really sick, they're extremely tired, or had surgery. They generally also respond to the word "walk" once they learn it (although I've heard of a dog who hated walks and would hide when the leash came out), the doorbell, knocking noises, and can be taught to go to certain family members or look for people they haven't seen in a long time. My family likes to ask Waffles where I am (since I'm in college), which often results in him sneaking into my room or sitting in front of my door.
• Opposite of what you might think, smaller dogs (like mine) are more likely to bark at other dogs than big dogs are. Small dogs tend to think they're bigger than they are, and may also feel threatened by the presence of other dogs. 
• If they want to be petted, dogs can be very persistent. Half the time when I sit down to write, Waffles will nudge my hand (my right hand, too!) to ask me to pet him.
• Dogs like to have their own space sometimes. Waffles likes to crawl under my bed, there's a green rug in my room that he likes to lay on, and a corner in the living room blocked off by couches and a table that he often crawls into. Dogs do like to be around humans, but they also like to have their alone time.
• Dogs are incredibly smart. They can sense when someone has been physically injured, when someone is sad, and when you are about to leave the house and lock him in his crate for the whole day. They will be sensitive to injured people (for example, not jumping into your arms if your arms are hurt), look at you with their huge eyes when they're sad, and when you let your dog outside to do his business before you leave, if he knows you're going to be gone for a long time, he may hide or refuse to come in.
• Some people keep their dogs outside (usually large dogs only), some lock their dogs in a cage-like box (we call it the crate) when they have to leave the house, some people have certain restrictions for where their dogs are allowed to go (may be limited to downstairs, tile only, etc.), and some people really don't care and let their dogs sleep in their beds. Waffles' privileges got extended, but he hasn't gotten the right to sleep on my bed yet. (I'm working on it though.)

Hope this has been helpful and insightful. Do your characters have pets? Share about your writing below!

Wacky Wednesday: Featuring Story Analyzer (Free editing help!)

Story Analyzer was created by my friend Shiraz. It's free and helps a lot with cleaning up writing. There are a variety of issues you can ask the Story Analyzer to help you look for, such as repeated dialogue tags, phrase summary, and other stats. I've used this before to look for words that I tend to overuse, to rephrase sentences to not all start with the same word, and have used it for all sorts of other general editing purposes. Again, it's free and it's extremely useful, so why not give it a shot? You'll be glad you did!

If you have a good experience with the Story Analyzer, be sure to leave a note of thanks, and feel free to comment below with questions, remarks, and other various comments.

Toolbox Tuesday: Editing Advice, Part 1

*Adapted from when I blogged for The Sleepless Writers

These are some of my pet peeves that are easily avoidable if you know what they are.

Overuse of semicolons, poor usage of semicolons, improper semicolon usages, etc.

Especially in dialogue, it’s very rare for someone to talk normally with semicolons. People don’t say “I went to the store; I got bread.” They’d probably say something more along the lines of “I went to the store and got bread” or “I went to the store to get bread.” Having a semicolon here flows unnaturally and can be reworked in order to make the dialogue sound more realistic.

The truth is, very few people actually know how to use semicolons properly, and this is probably due to the fact that they don't show up frequently. Even avid readers don’t come across semicolons often. In first person especially, semicolons can sound very weird in narration. For third person novels, semicolons can appear more frequently without seeming out of place. Use semicolons if you want to, but make sure you're using them properly, first off, and also make sure that it's appropriate for the voice you're speaking with. 

Characters describing themselves

When you run your hand through your hair, do you think to yourself, “I run my hand through my black hair”? No. So why do characters get to do that?

The above isn't so terrible, but I personally don’t think it’s necessary for readers to immediately know a main character’s description because you’re seeing the world through the MC’s eyes anyway.  That, however, is just a personal opinion. What I just absolutely cannot stand is something like the following paragraph:

“I have blond hair. I have blue eyes. I am 5’4 and I weigh 120 pounds. I have two brothers and a dog.”

Yada yada yada. Please do not do that. Readers will get bored. They don’t care to read all of that information stacked together. The same thing goes for when another character is introduced. Especially if the MC already knows the characters, you should feed readers information a bit at a time. As characters talk, maybe their eyes meet. That’s a good time to mention a character’s eyes. Maybe a character plays with their hair. Good time to mention hair color.

For those who do want their main character’s description worked into narration, there are ways to go around this. Typically I use other characters to describe the main character. Some character makes a comment about the MC’s eyes. If the MC’s hair is messy, someone else can remark that it’s a black or brown or blond mess of a bird’s nest or something similar. Be creative when describing characters. (Try not to use a character standing in front of a mirror if possible because it’s done a lot, but it’s not the end of the world if this really happens to fit into the story.)

Terrible beginnings

There are two that I see overused and that I highly dislike.

Terrible Beginning 1: Character moves to a new town

Countless books have started off like this. Characters moving to new towns wouldn’t be so annoying if it wasn’t so overdone and if main characters weren’t so whiny about moving. Can this beginning be done well? Yes. Is it? Not often. My recommendation is to try to avoid this beginning but, if it’s necessary, edit it so it’s not like every other story where a character moves.

Terrible Beginning 2: Character wakes up and takes 2000 words to get out of the house. (Basically, completely useless details.)

Beginnings of stories are very important. They set the mood and the scene. If a character takes too long getting out of bed, dressing, showering, only to go to school, I’m probably going to put the book down. Please start the story where it actually begins. It’s okay to have a story start when the character is already at school. Save the condensed version of the wake up story for later in the book for after I’m hopefully already marathoning through it.

Nondescriptive descriptions

“She gave me a casual look.”

“She was pretty.”

“He was hot.”

What do these statements tell me? Really, nothing. What does the “casual look” look like? Often times everyone’s casual look is just a little different. “She was pretty” doesn’t tell me what the girl looks like, her facial expression, if she’s standing straight or slumping, any of that. It just gives a really general statement. Same with “He was hot.” Besides, people’s general perception of beauty and hotness are quite different. And there’s more to people than just how supposedly pretty or hot they are.

If any of the above is in your writing

Don’t panic. I make myself mad with my own pet peeves sometimes. It’s understandable that sometimes some of the above is unavoidable. However, a piece of writing with everything mentioned above in it could probably use a little work. Control + F is your friend. Use it. Look for repeated words, words that don’t really describe, whatever you think you should look for. Mechanics are not the most important thing in writing, but they are certainly useful to helping readers understand what you’re trying to say.

Toolbox Tuesday: Putting Songs or Lyrics Into Your Novel

*Adapted from when I blogged for The Sleepless Writers

Ever tried to write a song and put it into a book? Sometimes it can be a little difficult to make it work, mostly because as an author it’s not possible to let readers actually hear a character singing their song. However, there are still some things a writer should keep in mind if they’re inserting lyrics into a book, especially for writers who may not have much musical experience.

Do:

• Try to put a tune to it if possible. Even if it’s not going to appear anywhere, there are readers out there who are musicians, and they can pick up on awkward sounding lines if they’re in a novel.
• Try several different synonyms for words and see which one fits your song best. Sometimes “kind” will work better than “nice” in certain songs, and vice-versa.
• Try to get people to help you improve your song. However, there might be some advice that should not be taken. This can typically be judged based on how many people say the same thing about a song.
• Try to sing the song you’ve written. This is one of the best ways to tell if it makes sense or not musically and lyrically.

Don’t:

• Don’t have a million and one stanzas. While a song is quite like a poem, too many verses and too many lyrics might do better as a character’s poem instead of a song.
• Don’t have a million and one lines in one stanza. Musically it feels and reads very unrealistically. Quatrains (four-line stanzas) are often a good way to go. Anywhere from about 4-8 at the very most lines per stanza will do nicely.
• Don’t focus so much on rhyming that it takes away from the overall meaning of a song. Rhyming is nice, but it is not necessary.
• Don’t be afraid to try songwriting just because you don’t normally play music! However, also don’t be afraid of asking a friend who knows a lot about music to help you out. Just make sure this friend will be honest with you about your lyrics and their quality.

Please keep in mind all these are suggestions and not necessarily imperative to making a song. Just a few tips from someone who’s been writing songs for a while and occasionally inserting them into novels.

Music Monday: Introducing Lyric Wars

*Adapted from when I blogged for The Sleepless Writers

For those who have never heard of it, I would like to introduce a concept called “lyric wars.” A lot of writers I know already participate in a game called “word wars,” where a certain time is set (i.e. from :10-:20 of whatever hour it is, as a lot of us are in different time zones) and whoever is participating writes for that amount of time straight. In this example, everyone would write for ten minutes, then post what they wrote and get feedback from the other writers. Lyric wars are different in that one person will first choose several different songs as prompts. Those participating typically vote on which prompt they want to write, and then they all write a scene inspired by those lyrics for 5 or 10 minutes. (I typically go for 5 for lyric wars.)

Why are lyric wars so awesome? My August NaNo novel was inspired by a random lyric war. Intending for it to just be a short story, I tried to expand on the 100 words I wrote in those 5 minutes. Then those 100 words became 1000, then 2000, and then before I knew it, I was writing a novel instead of a short story for an anthology. Point is, unexpected things can happen from lyric wars. So give them a shot! The possibilities are endless.

I plan to regularly post three lyric prompts every Monday. Please tell me stories of what happens with these prompts! The goal is to inspire others. (I'm happy to look over anything you might write based off them.)

Prompts for this week:

1. Your love is where I'm falling, but please don't catch me. (Catch Me - Demi Lovato)

2. It's like the world's closing around us and we're doing just fine. (No Distance - Jason Chen)

3. Every time I fight, the scars are gonna heal, but they're never gonna go away. (No Love - Simple Plan)

Enjoy, and happy writing!